My story:
I always liked looking at bugs since I went on my first hike, which I was only 3 years old. As soon as I went, everything felt super awesome seeing so many insects around me, as they were just fascinating because they all have different body's, sizes, appetite, and behavior. As I kept on exploring different trails around me, I kept on getting more knowledge of insects, and started to favour certain ones. That being said, in particular, mantises were my favourite, towering interest over all other insects. What I liked about them, is that they look extremely cool, and have forearms that can actually grab pray unlike a lot of other insects. This also makes it super interesting to watch when they hunt and eat, and also you don't even have to feed them everyday which makes them also easy to take care of.

I've had this mantis since August, and a couple days ago I fed him a small blue fly bottle spike. He was instar L5. Immediately after, he was super lethargic and passed away over a few days. I've fed him green bottle spikes from Josh's frogs with no problems, although this was a new container of spikes. I read online before that they can't die from overeating, but may sometimes vomit, which I saw no evidence of. He basically sucked all the "juice" from the spike and died holding it's husk.

I want to know if he died due to overeating or if it's something else.

I have some avocado trees that I bring in when the weather gets cold. A few days ago I noticed baby praying mantises in my kitchen, probably Chinese Mantis. I collected as many as I could find and put them in an old aquarium. There are currently 8 in the container. I would like to get them through the winter, but then release them back into the wild as soon as it warms up. They emerged last Monday and I've been feeding them flightless fruit flies. Wondering if anyone has advice for short-term care? Will they eat each other before I can get them outside? Any help is appreciated, thank you.

A couple of days ago I posted a photo of Priscilla eating a pregnant cricket / cricket filled with eggs. Sadly I don’t think she’s been feeling good ever since that meal. It has been over a week, maybe even a week and a half since she stopped pooping. Her abdomen is still full of it and she seemingly hasn’t digested any of it. I’ve been giving her water to drink and she’s drinking it much more eagerly than ever before, so she’s thirstier than usual.

Right now I’ve observed that she regurgitates a bit of the black cricket parts into her mouth along with an egg, and then chews on it and tries to swallow it again. 😭

I don’t suppose there’s any trick to help a sick mantis. She’ll just have to figure it out herself or she’ll die a bit prematurely. I know there’s tricks like “dip the tip of the mantis’ butt in water for a minute, and if it has a hairworm, it’ll crawl out” but I don’t think she has a parasite, just an inability to digest her food since days. The cricket eggs themselves may have clogged her up.

I didn’t intend to give her adult crickets, the seller didn’t state it outright. I just had to learn it myself when I brought them home and they started chirping LOL. I only gave her young crickets before. I figured those are a less risky choice, and I still think so. Oh well.

Our Timor Shield did her final moult earlier in the week, what a beast she has become! Unfortunately, our Yunnan Flower died yesterday - not long after completing her 10th ootheca.

Timmi

Daisy

Hello everyone! Just a quick question regarding my L3 orchid mantis. I set up an enclosure for it with live plants and all that, however before I introduced it, a fungus gnat outbreak happened. I keep a lot of plants so I'm not surprised. My mantis absolute loves hunting them down and chomping on them. My question is this - can it overfeed itself eating all of these fungus gnats? She appears very healthy and is having great time hunting them down, but I thought I'd put this question out there! Thanks everyone 🙂

My adult mantis molted into adulthood nearly a month ago and has refused to eat for weeks. I tried with mealworms (both alive and with their head cut off) and sometimes he grabs the mealworm and then just drops it seconds later for no reason, over and over and over. Other times he just walks away and refuses to even look at the mealworm. Then I tried with both grasshoppers and fruitflies (he’s a ghost mantis) and he still wouldn’t eat, he wouldn’t even grab them. His abdomen is completely turned to the side for some reason and won’t go in place under his wings. After he molted, he was in a certain position that made his abdomen turn completely to one side and I think that when his new exoskeleton hardened it just kinda got stuck in that position, and I’m worried that it might’ve harmed him or something. He also lost a part of his antenna and one of his front legs from his last molt. Can someone help me out?

I just got my mantis a month ago, and it molted 3 times, but something was off. Everything grew except for the antennae. Is there something wrong with my mantis, or this a normal thing to happen during growth? She was i3 before and currently she in i6, and for this species, it turns into an adult in i10. It looks super funny how her antennae look super small compared to her body as they haven't grew. As you can see the photo, there is an image of her a month ago and today. Both of the photos are the same mantis, she just changed colors that's all.

Left = yellow one today
Right = yellow one on oct 31st

Same yellow mantis

I recently got a bunch of Dubia roaches after hearing how nutritious they are for my fully grown Chinese Mantis. She’s used to crickets but they started biting and I got tired of cutting off the mandibles with the last batch. But my old lady mantis is really struggling with the roaches. I’d appreciate any help you can give. These are the things I tried:

1. I placed them in her enclosure and the damn roaches just bury themselves in the substrate.
2. I then placed her a few roaches in an empty 5 gallon bucket. I tried to get the roaches to crawl towards her and she pounced a few times but they were all failed attempts (they’re so damn slippery)
3. I left them all in that bucket for a day to see if she would get one, but she didn’t.
4. I attempted to tweezer feed her but she kept grabbing the tweezers and started getting frustrated
5. the only thing that has kind of worked was cutting one open and holding it in front of her mouth. She’ll eat but she won’t grab it. However, I can’t maintain the position with my medical conditions.

Any help please?

I got home from work to a nice surprise, fluffy (jeweled) has finally got her wings 🪽

I’m working on a huge colony tank atm and considering wandering violins as an option. Does anyone know how badly these are wanted in the hobby/wanted by pet shops? If I keep them colony wise they’ll have tons of eggs and I don’t know what I’d do with them

And special thanks to that redditor who gave me the info to this cutie ♥️